Font and placement for worship slides

[Beverley]

I like to be able to read it myself in the back. Being that I have poor eyesight I figure if I can read it most of the other people can also. I think when thinking about the size of the font it also matters how big your Church is. The bigger or the farther back people are the more difficult to see. I use the ariel bold with a black boarder, Capital on most every new line. There are a few that I leave small but it really is dependant on the song. I try to say away from busy backgrounds that make reading the words more difficult and I try to keep with the lyrics and make page breaks more natural.

[wogster]

Originally Posted by FocusMM

Hi. I just wanted to find out from other churches what Font(s) they normally use for their worship song slides. Does one work better than the other? Do you use ALL CAPS? Do you change up the fonts for different songs?

Also, how many lines per slide do you use. We try to keep it at four lines or less. And do you center the lyrics or position as a lower third?

We use ProPresenter with motion backgrounds behind the lyrics. We had changed up the fonts a bit to appeal to the younger crowd and make it look more contemporary. But the Pastoral staff wants to change it back to a more standard font but has allowed me to get feedback from other churches. Thanks

DeWayne Towe
Media Director
New Life Christian Center

There are really 3 things to be concerned with:

1) Character size on the screen, bigger is better, most people use a computer display of around 40 point for important stuff. Smaller fonts for other stuff.

2) Character detail, the less detail the better, sans serif fonts are better then serif fonts, and plain fonts are better then complex fonts.

3) Contrast, you want good contrast between the characters and the background, that means a light background with dark characters or dark background with light characters. If your background is a photo or video, then you can use outline fonts, where there is a contrasting line around the font, to make sure it's always readable. If the photo is B&W use yellow or light green rather then white for the characters.

One other piece of advice, if people tell you they find the screen hard to read, then try something different, like a larger font or more contrast. Remove bulbs from lights that are close to the screen, and block windows that put light on the screen.

[superfly]

A few years later, and I've ditched Arial Rounded MT for the free "Ubuntu" font that comes with Ubuntu. It is incredibly readable, one of the best sans serif fonts I have found.

Usability experts say that serif fonts (think Times New Roman) are easier to read, thanks to the serifs on the characters - they help people to see the differences between the characters, especially characters like L and I. I found that the Ubuntu font has a very clear distinction between those two characters, amongst others.

[[Admin] osborn4]

I think the serif recommendation is for printed matter and pages full of text.

I really think san serif looks a lot cleaner and very readable on the screen.

[[Admin] osborn4]

Originally Posted by superfly

A few years later, and I've ditched Arial Rounded MT for the free "Ubuntu" font that comes with Ubuntu. It is incredibly readable, one of the best sans serif fonts I have found.

Here's the download site for the Ubuntu font. Looks like a very full family.

Interesting that the condensed and mono versions are serif.

[Highway 7]

I know this is an old thread, but I need to ask: why must worship slides be center-justified?? I ask because when I buy a book of poems, the poems are not center-justified on the printed page, they are instead left-justified.

Also when a writer is composing his songs or his poems, he does not center-justify as he writes, instead (if he is writing in the English language) he will left-justify as he writes. And he will left-justify whether he is writing by hand with pen and paper, or if he is using a word processor.

Even this message forum, where I am right now typing out this post, has the default setting as left-justified for the text box where I am composing, as well as for the final published posting that will appear in the thread.

Why do so very many worship slides in modern churches get center-justified and not left-justified?

I am a writer and I find center-justification to be very distracting. It's not natural as far as how I personally process language in its written form. And I also believe it is a disservice to the writer who wrote those lyrics, and a disservice to how he or she intended the lyrics to be received by the reader. If he or she would never center the text, why then do you?

[tpichler]

Originally Posted by Highway 7

... why must worship slides be center-justified?? ...

I agree with you, but I'm afraid we are in the minority on this topic.

I have never heard the artistic argument before yours. Very interesting

I like to remind folks that the lyrics are placed there so that people that are less familiar with the songs can follow along and learn to appreciate the powerful meaning behind these songs. People who have input on the layout of lyrics are usually already very familiar with the song and so they only need a casual reminder. When you only need a reminder then the center formatting works fine. However, if you are focused on the few who may not be as familiar with the song then we need to pay close attention to contrast, readability, color blindness, physical font size, justification, punctuation, capitalization, and phrasing.

[rjwalker]

I too am a justify-left heretic. (Center justify is for title pages of reports, IMHO!)

I also like line spacing at 1.5, and for font size I use the old time test - can you read it from 8x the diagonal, which I learned doing medial conventions in the 70s and which has never let me down.

[Highway 7]

Originally Posted by tpichler

I agree with you, but I'm afraid we are in the minority on this topic.

I have never heard the artistic argument before yours. Very interesting

I like to remind folks that the lyrics are placed there so that people that are less familiar with the songs can follow along and learn to appreciate the powerful meaning behind these songs. People who have input on the layout of lyrics are usually already very familiar with the song and so they only need a casual reminder. When you only need a reminder then the center formatting works fine. However, if you are focused on the few who may not be as familiar with the song then we need to pay close attention to contrast, readability, color blindness, physical font size, justification, punctuation, capitalization, and phrasing.

Thank you. I'm glad I am not alone on at least some aspects of my quibble.

Meanwhile, I never before realized that there is a difference between introducing a new song to the congregation vs. reminding them of the words to an established and well-known song. If the philosophy being adhered to by the worship team/tech team is that these slides are only meant to be gentle reminders for the congregation of lyrics which everyone assembled most likely already knows, then I can better understand now what is being strived for. But I still object for the sake of the songwriters who wrote those songs.

And now for Meanwhile Number Two ... please permit me to explain my situation, the one which brought me to this message forum this week....



I am newly attending a church with an extraordinary pastor. He is the essence of humility and grace. His sermons are full of life and truth. What a rare individual he is!

He also has somewhat of a hands-off policy as far as the various ministries in the church. He believes he should allow volunteers to step forth, he considers their characters and their histories in the congregation, and then when he feels they are fit for leadership he commissions them into the various ministries (Sunday school, hospitality, tech team, etc) and just lets them do their thing. And so the worship team and tech team are full of very humble and kindly people who all strive to do their best for God, with little input from the pastor who now trusts them. That all seems well and good on the surface. But here is what I have found going on.... The worship team sings a roster of songs that I have zero familiarity with. And the tech team --totally hip on the latest in this whole field of ministry-- does the following, all of which contribute to an extreme distraction for me, and thus make it nearly impossible for me to worship with full concentration:

1) All slides are center justified.
2) All slides have just four lines of a song on them and no more.
3) The title of a song never appears anywhere on any slide, so I have no idea of what the name of any given song even is --this to me is huge! Two reasons why the lack of a title is so disturbing to me. First, I believe the writer of the song is being dissed, and the people being led in worship are IMO being shortchanged on the full scope of the song because titles are important as far as a song's meaning and intent. Why are the titles being expunged from the slides and barred from having any place in the act of worship? The songwriter wrote that song with a title, and yet the title is being denied of the people who are being asked to sing it. Maybe everyone else in the pews knows those songs and their titles, but I do not. I want to know the titles, but how can I find out? I certainly can't interrupt my pew neighbors right in the middle of worship and ask them. And when worship is over, I don't recall the songs. And you know what -- I truly WANT to recall the songs (which brings me to my second complaint).... Second, the problem here is that the songs are not processing for me via any of the machinery of my language centers -- they are instead being wafted past the fluttering windsock of my emotions. I am being asked to disengage all critical thinking via this style of worship and to slip into some sort of altered state of consciousness via these songs. The worship portion of the service is being engineered in such a way as to get people to disengage the brain and instead to be entirely experiential in worship. And I don't like it. Shutting down critical thinking isn't how I believe one is supposed to interact with God. I'm not saying I don't want it to be "an experience." But the actual roadblocks I am witnessing against even the smallest grain of intellectual application are overt in this particular church. And I don't believe this is scriptural.




Please consider this:

God's primary means of communicating his grace to us is via the written word. And written words have logical rules governing how they are graphically presented. Trying to tweak things up so that it "looks cool" and avoids all interface with logic is not operating in the realm of linguistic clarity. I believe that mucking about with the conventions of written words undermines those words and dulls the application of thought when we sing those words. No more thought is being applied to the digestion of a song. If you want for the brains of your worshipers to have their logic centers deactivated during worship, and to have their communication centers abandon all true language processing, then this practice should suit your purposes just fine. But what ARE your purposes as worship leaders and as tech team members??

I once again want to point out that I am approaching this from the standpoint of my being a writer. I am someone who works with words on a level that is rightfully deemed a craft -- I am a wordsmith, a craftsperson. A mason is likewise a craftsperson, one who works skillfully with stone and chisel, brick and mortar; who understands the limitations of his materials as far as loadbearing capabilities, weathering, and ultimately the aesthetic qualities they possess. In the same vein, a cobbler is a craftsperson who understands leather and cloth and wood and glue and nails; who understands the different ways that people walk and how they tend to wear down their shoes. And so I am a craftsperson who works not with bricks or nails, but with words. I understand words, how they work, how people perceive them, how stringing them together becomes language, and how language itself is a very complex human capability reliant upon a lot of cognitive processes.

A song is a form of communication. So from a communication standpoint, these overhead projector slides with just two or three lines of song at a time on them, lacking punctuation, lacking capitalization, center-justified, and paying no mind to stanza structure, are not helping in the desperately important task of communicating the LINGUISTIC aspect of the message of the song. Instead they are a grave hindrance to such communication, reducing the entire act of worship --and it is an act-- into a sort of a drug-free acid trip which we don't even recall the details of after it's over. It's like everyone draws a panting sigh of relief and says, "Wow! That was groovy, baby. I don't remember any of it. All I know is it sure felt good while it was happening!"

What ever happened to "Come, let us reason together," ??



(And now I'll give you my Meanwhile Number Three, I have other complaints about the worship which go beyond the scope of this message forum. Specifically, I find that the worship team is employing some very deliberate musical techniques which are meant to mute the melody lines of ALL the songs, thus trying to subdue the musical qualities of every last song and to hammer them down into flat, uninteresting tonal glides of sound with an almost seamless bump-free journey of never going too high or too low on the musical scale. Not a single staccato or presto in sight. Nothing but lots of half-steps, steps and skips -- very few fourths, and rarely any fifths. They're not actually changing the musical notes, but they are definitely using the instruments to play down all the fourths and fifths, filling in the otherwise "startling" chasms of those melodic leaps with musical spackling compound to make it all as flat and smooth as possible. "Startle-free" music is the goal. I compare it to when an exceptionally curvaceous woman deliberately wears as many frumpy layers of clothing as possible to muffle and obfuscate her true shape and form --btw, I myself am a woman in case you're wondering where the heck my mind is with such a comparison. This musical technique was made famous by New Age music, also more generically called meditation music. It's like 45 minutes worth of one long and unbroken "ohm!" Once again, this is all meant to disengage the brain and encourage less thought and more experience-prone states of mind. Groovy, baby.)


If you're wondering if I have voiced any of this to anyone at my new church (especially the pastor) the answer is no. I am too new there. And so I can't see being such a trouble-maker over something seemingly so trivial as this, especially when so much of my complaint revolves almost exclusively around me and my own personal hard-wiring --a hard-wiring which I can't claim with any confidence to be common enough among others in the congregation to warrant a pastoral review of the tech-team's and worship team's current practices. And if anything I came here to this message forum get some answers. (I googled the phrase "worship slides justified" and it landed me here in this exact thread.) Learning about the notion that the slides are merely there as "reminders" of songs already known makes more sense to me now. But again, I know NONE of these songs that my new church sings, thus I'm at a disadvantage at the outset of every worship session, and then the lack of song titles just leaves me even more out in the cold. And then what's even worse is that I can't remember the lyrics nor even the (grossly muted) melody lines, and so I feel robbed in that I do not get to leave church with even one song in my heart because not one of those songs ever once landed in my heart to begin with. The pathway to my heart is heavily guarded by my intellect, and since my intellect is being so thoroughly banned from any engagement with these songs, that pathway remains untraveled. So in the end, what do I "get" out of these worship sessions?? A whole lot of nothing, really. I am tempted to start showing up late on purpose just to avoid the extreme frustration that this church's worship presents to me. But if I do that, am I really "in one accord" with that body of believers?? I don't want to leave because I find the pastor's teachings to be refreshingly real and unconventionally honest. Oy! Such a disconnect between his preaching style and that worship team's/tech team's style!

So yeah, I came here for some answers. I think I already have one or two so far, thanks, tpichler.

If anyone else wants to offer any insight, please do so.

[rjwalker]

>>1) All slides are center justified.

Boo!

>>2) All slides have just four lines of a song on them and no more.

What about where the chorus or verses have 6 lines?

I break lines to convey the sense - if 4 lines, fine - if 6, well, duh....

I suppose there might be situations where the 4 line rule males sense -- too small of a screen, perhaps?

BTW, do you use graphic images behind the lyrics? More than 4 lines might be visually distracting when there are complex graphics behind the lyrics.

There will be many valid opinions here, but my view is that the lyrics are more important than the graphics. (I used to do media at church with graphic backgrounds for lyrics slides. Where I am now uses plain backgrounds - which I didn't like at first but have come to appreciate. The discussion at http://midnightoilproductions.com/re...tersonglyrics/ maybe teaches a lesson the author didn't intend )

And what kind of line spacing do they use? I prefer 1.5, myself.


>>3) The title of a song never appears anywhere on any slide,

Boo! I agree with your points. I would have never occurred to me to leave the title out

For me, leaving out the title is possibly one tiny example of not creating a comfortable setting for new folks/visiters - and maybe even might hint to some that "our services are for folks already in the 'in group.'"


This almost sounds like a case where "rules of thumb" have become ossified - or perhaps where an authoritarian, black or white sort of person has sneaked into a leadership role. (Like that has never happened before, right?)

Question, do they include the CCLI license #?

= = = = = = = =
FWIW:
We use a projected "frame" with church branding on the left and top on all of our slides, framing the slide content. (I don't like this framing myself, but the pastor likes it, so.....)

The first slide for a song has the title prominently on the top, and typically an illustration in the 'content' area. This slide gives the projectionist and the video guy a 'resting' point while the singers get together and get started, etc. As the 'video guy,' I really like having this slide available to cover for 'set' changes on the altar

The next slides have the sets of lyrics and the song title in a different, less noticeable color.

It would have never occurred to me to not include the song title on at least the opening slide.

[Highway 7]

Originally Posted by rjwalker

>>1) All slides are center justified.

Boo!

>>2) All slides have just four lines of a song on them and no more.

What about where the chorus or verses have 6 lines?

I believe I have seen a 6-liner on rare occasions. But it's mostly just 4.

My own feeling is that the concept of parigraphy has been somehow lost on a lot of modern Americans in their treatment of written language. Such as ....

NOVELS -- When writing a novel, when is a paragraph of narrative a complete paragraph, and when do you hit the hard-return key to make a second separate paragraph of new narative? The answer to that is: when the main thrust of the first paragraph is complete.

SCREENPLAYS -- When writing a screenplay, when is a block of action description one complete block of action description, and when do you hit the hard-return key to make a second separate block of new action description? The answer to that is: when that first block has fully encompassed ONE and ONLY ONE entire story beat, then you move on to the next story beat.

SONGS -- When writing a song (or in the case of the tech-team, when transposing the complete text of just one song onto a set of overhead projector slides), when is one part of the song a complete part, needing to remain intact unto itself and not get sliced up into incomplete, disjointed and totally splintered thoughts? That answer to that is STANZAS.


But I just don't feel like there are enough tech-team members in the church world who have a full grasp of the importance of stanzas. And I'm not just talking about the over-simplicity of a typical nursery rhyme, such as

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
Sugar is sweet,
And so are you. /left justified, thank you very much]

I'm talking about ensuring that the thought being conveyed by that segment of the song remains un-fragmented. And IMO, fragmented thoughts are the stepping stone to confused thoughts. Why court confusion in the house of God?

Originally Posted by rjwalker

I break lines to convey the sense - if 4 lines, fine - if 6, well, duh....

I suppose there might be situations where the 4 line rule males sense -- too small of a screen, perhaps?

The screen does seem small to me. They'd most likely opt to change the font size before being forced to make the screen larger. And the screen itself has been framed by a wooden frame nailed into the wall. So if they do change the size of the screen, we're talking about a carpentry job with wood and paint and having to fix the old holes in the wall that get left behind when the smaller frame gets removed.

Originally Posted by rjwalker

BTW, do you use graphic images behind the lyrics? More than 4 lines might be visually distracting when there are complex graphics behind the lyrics.

Yes they do. And I don't like it. The graphics are glittery, and sometimes the glitter gets very white which causes a few moments of the white projected words getting blurred out of visibility. (I personally think animated graphics are childish. But if you MUST use them, try to keep them as unobtrusive as possible. White-out blurring is unacceptable.)

Originally Posted by rjwalker

There will be many valid opinions here, but my view is that the lyrics are more important than the graphics. (I used to do media at church with graphic backgrounds for lyrics slides. Where I am now uses plain backgrounds - which I didn't like at first but have come to appreciate. The discussion at [redacted by forum software rules] maybe teaches a lesson the author didn't intend )

I could scream after reading that article you just posted.

Here's an exact quote from it: "The better option is to cut the line at the phrase, which makes better sense from a design perspective, and musically too..."

Since when does any principle of visual design come into play in worship?? This whole focus of "But it needs to look nice/cool/spiritual/uplifting/whatever," is not what worship is supposed to be about. Looks and superficial appearances are not what God desires. And I get the sense (although I could be wrong, and far be it from me to bring an unwavering proclamation of judgment against someone I don't even know) that the writer of that blog entry is VERY concerned about superficial appearances, but not about meaning or intent. And when he tossed in that afterthought of "and musically too," I became even more convinced that he doesn't REALLY care about music for the sake of music. He strikes me as being far more concerned about design, and the music itself is a side issue. Words are not WORDS to him as far as being conveyors of thought and intent. Instead words are just pretty squiggles that he gets to play with in Photoshop. "Meaning? Intent? What's that? I'm a designer, man!"

Originally Posted by rjwalker

And what kind of line spacing do they use? I prefer 1.5, myself.

I haven't noticed. Spacing is not an issue for me, but I can check it out.

Originally Posted by rjwalker

>>3) The title of a song never appears anywhere on any slide,

Boo! I agree with your points. I would have never occurred to me to leave the title out

For me, leaving out the title is possibly one tiny example of not creating a comfortable setting for new folks/visiters - and maybe even might hint to some that "our services are for folks already in the 'in group.'"


This almost sounds like a case where "rules of thumb" have become ossified - or perhaps where an authoritarian, black or white sort of person has sneaked into a leadership role. (Like that has never happened before, right?)

Question, do they include the CCLI license #?

No. They do not even include the CCLI. They include NOTHING. Why, I don't know. Maybe they wrote the songs themselves. (Once again, I never heard them before.)

Originally Posted by rjwalker

= = = = = = = =
FWIW:
We use a projected "frame" with church branding on the left and top on all of our slides, framing the slide content. (I don't like this framing myself, but the pastor likes it, so.....)

The first slide for a song has the title prominently on the top, and typically an illustration in the 'content' area. This slide gives the projectionist and the video guy a 'resting' point while the singers get together and get started, etc. As the 'video guy,' I really like having this slide available to cover for 'set' changes on the altar

The next slides have the sets of lyrics and the song title in a different, less noticeable color.

It would have never occurred to me to not include the song title on at least the opening slide.

I'm not real keen on mixing visuals like this. To me the songs need to be presented as just straight text. It needs to be "nothing but the words." This strikes me as your pastor buying into the whole concept of "branding." But I disagree that the church of Jesus Christ needs to adopt Madison Avenue strategies to get the Word of God out there. Just the words themselves are all we need -- and Jesus is the Word behind those words, so that other stuff isn't needed IMO. Piling all that other stuff on top just isn't needed.

The 17th century English theologian William Chillingworth said "The Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible, is the religion of Protestants." There was strong backlash all throughout the Protestant Reformation against (among other things) graphics and visuals and iconic imagery. Even the incorporation of an actual cross into any part of a church building was deemed idolatrous in some Protestant sects. In fact, to this day, no Amish meeting house (they call it a "meeting house" instead of a "church" to keep as separate as possible from that which was being protested against) has any cross found either in it or on it. "Illuminated manuscripts" were also deemed idolatrous, and I find that disheartening since I am an Irish-American, and the Book of Kells is a breathtakingly beautiful work. But if you asked me to choose between keeping everything vanilla plain like an Amish meeting house, or going to the other extreme of wall-to-wall visuals and stained glass windows and babbling fountains in the lobby and sparkly graphics during worship and all kinds of other cognitive-dissonance-inducing nonsense of the whiz-bang-gee-ain't-it-cool variety of distractions which all quite unintentionally contribute to diverting our focus away from the centrality of the Word of God, I'll go for the Amish meeting house any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

[Highway 7]

BTW, I hope I'm not breaking any forum rules here. I am pretty much declaring my own theological biases, yet I don't even know if that's allowed in the community guidelines. This is supposed to be a forum for discussions about church media, not theology per se, so I don't know if I may have either offended anyone or broken any actual rules here.